Author's Note: Just in case you people were getting too many happy, fuzzy feels...
"Thank you."
Tauriel glances up from the herbs she is soaking in water, her eyes meeting a pair of liquid brown ones across the poorly lit room.
"For saving my life," Kili specifies, the corner of his mouth twisting up into that achingly familiar smirk. She suppresses a smile, nodding to him before turning her attention back to her task. The herbs are floating on the surface again, dry, and won't seem to absorb water no matter how many times she presses them to the bottom of the bowl. They prickle slightly against her fingertips as she submerges them once again, and she hears the dwarf stir from behind her.
A glance over her shoulder confirms that Kili is trying to sit up, working his arms beneath him to take his weight, and she frowns. He should not be trying to get up yet, his wounds are too fresh, but before she can reprimand him another voice speaks up.
"Kili, lie down. You're hurt. The elf will still be here when you wake, so lie back and sleep a while."
She hadn't noticed the golden prince before, although he is settled on the window seat like he has been there for a while. He glares at his brother until the younger dwarf gives in with a sigh, and Tauriel again turns her attention to her task.
The herbs still float in the water, dry.
Wrinkling her nose in annoyance she scoops the sprigs out, hoping that the warmth of the water will have been enough to infuse the medicinal compounds from within the plants. The water smells just as strongly as it normally should, so she brings it to the dwarf's side.
Kili is on the other side of the room from her, however Tauriel finds herself surprised at how long the distance across the floor seems. There is also a slight tilt, as if the lake is rocking the floor, and her task becomes infuriatingly difficult with each step.
When she at last reaches Kili's side, she finds him looking up at her with the same adoration and trust that he had when she returned the runestone to him in the dungeons. He smiles at her, reaching to take her hand, and she watches as he twines his fingers through hers. His hand is warm and calloused, his fingers far broader than hers. He touches her as though afraid she will break, and she tightens her grip on him to assure him that he need not worry about being rough.
"You know, even though I'm a dwarf, I'm starting to see what you like about the stars," Kili muses. He catches a lock of her hair, twirling it like liquid fire between his fingers, and gives her a cheeky grin that tells her he is not truly referring to the stars when he next speaks. "I could grow to love anything possessing such beauty."
"Is that all you see?" she questions softly, shifting the bowl so it sits beside his wounded leg. "Beauty?"
"My Lady, that is merely the start. Strength, radiance, grace, skill...the list goes on."
"I did not think stars possessed skills," she replies, giving nothing away yet, but Kili is grinning up at her like a fool and he catches her hands in his to draw her closer.
"You know full well which star I speak of."
She does not have time to put together a witty reply. Kili gives her hands a little tug, pulling her closer, and leans to brush his lips against her cheek in a feather-light caress. The movement both shocks and thrills her, and Tauriel turns her head to accept his next soft kiss on her lips as Kili hums a sound of pleasure. They deepen the kiss into something slightly more substantial, airy brushes exchanged for a heated and drawn out contact between them.
When they part, hovering only just far enough so they are not touching, he is looking at her with bright eyes and they are both out of breath.
"Thought you were supposed to be checking my wound," he whispers, his breath warm as it ghosts over her lips, and Tauriel has to take a slow breath to steady herself before straightening up. Drawing away from him feels like a loss, and she resolves to close that distance once more as soon as she is sure that his wound is cleaned of the poison and will not cause him pain.
When she checks his leg, however, she finds the wound closed over, as if it had been healing for weeks. The skin is twisted in lumpy scars that lead into a deep pucker where the arrow had pierced him, but it is closed, and she wonders for a second why she'd been preparing the herb water at all if he is not bleeding any longer.
Although she could have sworn she saw his leg in wraps just a moment ago.
Before she can comment on this, however, a roar shakes the ground. An orange glow lights up the room through the curtained windows, the dishes rattling on their shelves as Bard's children scream. Suddenly the room is very crowded indeed, full of dwarves and human children all running about and into one another and panicking.
Tauriel falls back on her experience as Guard Captain and barks orders to the dwarves out of habit.
"Get the children down to the water. Get in a boat and leave the city, do not wait for me."
One of them tries to argue, an older dwarf with a bushy beard, but surprisingly it is Kili that speaks.
"Do what she says."
He is standing at her side, favoring his leg only slightly, and gives her a reassuring smile as he strings his bow. "Ready for this?"
"You're hurt," she tries to argue, wanting him to go with the rest, to escape the city, but Kili shakes his head with a gentle smile.
"You saw it yourself, my leg is healed. And I'm a pretty good shot for a dwarf," he adds with a wink, reaching to take her hand. "Come on, we have a dragon to shoot down."
She pulls him back before he can get far, and his look of surprise gentles when he sees the worry in her eyes.
"I don't want you to get killed," she begs. "I-...I..."
"I love you too," he whispers, drawing her near so that their foreheads press together. "Amrâlimê."
"My Love," she whispers in return, holding him close for a long moment until the ground shakes with the rumble of an angry dragon, screaming his rage to the sky.
Tauriel gives in, snatching up her quiver and strapping on her knives before tossing her bow over a shoulder and joining Kili in the foyer. They meet each other's gaze, and he nods at her.
Tauriel pushes the door open and runs out into the cold, her bow at the ready for all the good that it will do her. Outside the light of fire is everywhere, reflected blindingly off of the smooth snow, and she has to squint to be able to see. She can hear the heavy crunch of Kili's boots behind her as she turns, scanning the sky for the dragon.
The sky is lighter now, almost blue, and she wonders briefly why it is no longer night time. She can hear the screams of the hurt and dying, the roar of large beasts and clashing swords, and she turns about again, looking for enemies, but she seems to be alone.
The houses have melted into the background, leaving her standing by herself atop a barren rock face, the occasional snowflake drifting down from a pastel sky.
There is a body on the ground, half concealed by a pile of worn rubble, and she rushes over to see if they still live. Their skin is cold to the touch, and she gets a nasty shock when she turns it over and Edhiruil's dead gaze meets hers.
Tauriel stumbles away from the body, horror creeping up her spine. They were in Laketown, weren't they? She and Legolas had been the only elves to go to Laketown after the dwarves. Her guard underlings should not be here.
But when she next glances around she realizes that she is not in Laketown.
She is on Ravenhill.
And she is alone.
"Kili," she breathes, whirling to look for him. But the dwarf is gone, not so much as a footprint to show what direction he has taken. "Kili!"
Her voice echoes back to her from the stone, and Tauriel runs headlong into the collapsing tower. She can hear the clash of swords from above, grunts, cries of pain, and hollers of rage from both orc and dwarf. She takes turn after turn, seeming to go in circles but never able to find stairs to take her up a level, to where Kili will be fighting the orcs. A minute of searching turns into two, and the sounds of fighting slowly die away as she circles the passages in a panic.
One of her haphazard turns dumps her out onto the landing where she had seen Kili killed, and she freezes in horror. Bolg will be waiting for her here.
She nocks an arrow, half-drawing her bow as she prepares for a fight, but no orc appears, and after a long few moments Tauriel creeps out onto the ledge, listening for even the slightest sound.
The snow is falling in dancing white specks, the strong breeze carrying the flakes up and about but refusing to let them land. Tauriel paces the length of the rock.
When she turns to double back, her eyes catch a detail that about stops her heart in her chest.
There is a shape on the ground behind a pile of rocks, one with a mop of dark hair and dressed in Durin blue, and Tauriel breaks into a run, her bow forgotten.
"Kili!" she screams, skidding to a stop at his side. She drops to her knees behind him, a hand reached out to help.
But she hesitates.
There is no blood beneath his body, and she can even see the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, but something feels wrong.
This is not how it went.
Kili was not waiting for her, the orc was.
For a moment Tauriel wonders if she has changed something she did this time around, something that she did not do the last time, and if that might warrant a different twist of fate for her dwarf.
That does not quell her feeling of unease, however.
After a long moment Tauriel plucks up the nerve to reach out, a hand gently clasped to Kili's shoulder, and she slowly begins to turn him over. His head lolls away from her, hair falling dark and ragged across his pale face, and Tauriel leans over him, calling his name in a whisper. Kili does not respond.
He is warm and alive beneath her touch, she can hear his breath - ragged but steady - and she wants to be relieved but something is wrong, and she feels uneasy and sick. She gently brushes her fingertips across his forehead, catching his hair to pull it out of the way. It is coarse between her fingers, and she smooths it back before clasping his shoulder to turn him over onto his back.
Bolg's face is grinning up at her from Kili's body and Tauriel shrieks, trying to scramble back as his hands close around her throat and tighten.
Author's Note: Kind of a cliffhanger. Sorry for that. Rest will be up next Friday.